Boeing Announces Cut Of 900 Jobs From Long Beach Plant

LONG BEACH (CBS) — The Boeing Co. announced Wednesday it will cut 900 of the 3,700 jobs at its Long Beach plant because of declining orders for C-17 cargo planes.

The factory is expected to be closed by the end of 2012, barring congressional intervention or a spate of foreign orders, which analysts consider unlikely, The Los Angeles Times reported.

“There’s just not that much of a market for this aircraft,” Scott Hamilton, an Issaquah, Wash.-based aviation industry consultant, told The Times.

Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster called Boeing’s announcement “difficult and disconcerting,” but “not entirely unexpected as the federal government has decreased orders for this workhorse aircraft.”

“The impacts from these reductions will affect the state and the region and is not constrained only to Long Beach,” the mayor added.

Long Beach “will continue our efforts to support Boeing in generating additional orders to preserve the thousand of jobs that remain and our Workforce Investment Board will commit resources to assist affected employees during this difficult period,” Foster said.